Redemption
by KyraPottered22years
Summary: The blood flowed inside their veins ardently. Words unspoken were whispered into a thin air. Their hands were eager to touch, with the bitter knowledge that they couldn't do it. (newcharacter / kylorenxrey)
1. Chapter 1

_**Redemption**_

* * *

 _She starred at him in the soft light of the twilight. In that pitch black of his suit, it seemed that those eyes were screaming. And she knew what, she could understand, even if he would wore that mask. Suddenly she thought she was living a dream, a lie, while his glance penetrated into her soul, branding her from the inside. The blood flowed inside their veins ardently. Words unspoken were whispered into a thin air. Their hands were eager to touch, with the bitter knowledge that they couldn't do it._

* * *

 _Chapter 1_

Will you really be able to be not tempted by the dark side of the force?

Luke Skywalker's words resounded in her skull, until that question became a feeble echo. A huge weight in her heart seemed to be blocking her heartbeats and she could feel her fingers tremble like leaves. Just few hours earlier, she had answered that question with a resolute and clear yes, but the closer they were getting to the First Order base, the more her certainties were crashing like a thin glass sheet. She clutched the worn out cloth of her old dress, her eyes were wandering everywhere, trying to ease the pressure with which the angst was weighing her body down.

 _The direct consequence of angst is panic, panic is the result of fear, fear leads to the dark side._

She had to be careful or she would surely fail.

Her master, General Leia, Finn, the whole Resistance, even droids counted on her, and if she thought this would bring her honor before, now there was just a nagging fear of making mistakes and fail everyone.

 _Fear leads to the dark side. That's what has happened to Ben Solo._

She gulped down. Even though she got used to it, being quiet now would only burden her, and that wasn't for sure a feeling that helped her self-control. She turned her gaze to the right, onto Finn, meaning to have a little chat, but also that initiative died on her lips, before she could even utter some words.

Thus she started sweating cold and some of her loose tresses got stuck to her neck and her temples.

 _Stop panicking._

She kept on repeating that to herself, until words lost their meaning and syllables seemed to be stuck together in an illogical and meaningless sense.

She would have wanted to unfasten her safety belt, stand up and shout to the top of her voice that she wasn't ready for that mission. She would have disappointed her master, but it was better sooner than later, wasn't it?

Speculation about her possibly leaving the scene was distracting her from what she swore she had to face. Only a couple of minutes later she realized she could not escape from her destiny. She could not just run away.

She closed her eyes, leant her head against the seat cushion and took a deep breath.

 _Force is all around us, it surrounds us, it flows through us. All it takes to feel it is to close your eyes._

And she truly felt it.

It was the most reassuring sensation she had ever felt, although that was not the first time she had drawn the light onto herself.

The light wrapped her up in a maternal embrace, it brushed every inch of her skin and seeped down through her muscles, making her unclench and giving her a sudden surge of courage and determination.

She opened up her eyes, breathing out through her lips. That prospect, which a few seconds earlier had her filled with anxiety and fear, now did not get anything across her, even though that boulder-like weigh was still there in her chest, squeezing her heart in a grip which had slackened a little bit, but not dissolved yet.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Rey directed her glance back at her friend, noticing how his hazel-brown gaze was now staring at a void horizon; she could feel his concern, mirroring in his emotions.

"Are you afraid that this mission can take a different turn?" she asked him, when she was sure he wouldn't have kept on talking. "I'm afraid for you." he admitted in a low voice, his glance encumbered with apprehension. Rey laid her hand on his dark fingers, running imaginary circles on the back of his hand. She grinned, and looking at him affectionately, like a sister, she told him: "Everything is going to be alright, that's a promise".

Those eyes, so beautiful, and that smile, so gentle, they were perfectly soothing and yet, Finn did not believe her. He drew his hands back, avoiding her touch. In that moment, her sweetness was burning him, it felt like it was branding him inside. The way she smiled at him reminded him that most likely he wouldn't have seen it anymore. He looked away and kept on staring everywhere but her.

"You can't promise something that doesn't depend on you" he told her coolly, while she tried to grasp the reason of that icy behavior, wondering where she did wrong.

Not knowing what she could answer, she chose silence as an alternative, putting an end to that brief discussion.

Their friendship started getting worse when Rey left Finn on that stretcher to go searching for Luke. They fought quite often and about the most futile reasons, and that made her feel awful. An ironic chuckle formed on her lips, wow I'm really not cut out for being a Jedi.

And yet, why did she set out to take the padawan's path under Master Luke Skywalker? Who made her do it?

She relinquished those negative thoughts, she shook her head, calling herself a stupid for this.

Her fingers dwelt on the security belt buckles, willing to move from there or anxiety and frustration would come back stronger than before.

"What are you doing?" a soldier of the Resistance startled her and made her jump on the seat. "we're 'bout to land and you can't stand up."

"Okay" she whispered, while her heart jumped up to her throat with each beat. The mission had just begun and now there was no time for fear anymore.

General Leia wanted to make advantage of the surprise factor, believing that the First Order had not yet recovered from the huge loss of men and weapons after the attack at the Starkiller base, but, as Finn knew perfectly well, the First Order was powerful.

They intercepted the signal of an unregistered ship as soon as it had cut across the planet atmosphere, so General Hux commanded that five hundred Stormtroopers were deployed by the landing site.

They apparently had just lost the surprise factor.

The Resistance soldiers unfastened their security belts, put on their safety helmets, got equipped with weapons and, splitting up in two uniform rows, leapt out of the ship.

Red was the dominant color that painted the battle scenery: the air, because of the blasters and the ground, because of the blood of the injured. From the triangular shaped bull's eyes, Rey and Finn were silently staring, waiting for action.

" We're nothing compared to them" commented Rey in a low voice, walking away from the bull's eye.

"What are you doing?" asked Finn, looking at her with a curious frown.

"I gotta go, you know what the plan is, don't you?"

"I know the plan, but now it's not the right moment for you to go." He closed the distance between them, grabbing her wrist and blocking her off right before the trailing edge. He looked her right through her eyes.

"The longer I wait for action, the more soldiers die, I gotta go now."

"Not now." That, more than a command, sounded like a plea. They just stood there for mere seconds, without saying a word.

"You told me before that I can't promise things that do not depend on me, you were right about that" she paused, disentangling herself from under Finn's grip.

"But what I am making now is a promise I will honor, at all costs: Finn, we will see each other again." He could not reply, because she had already turned her back on him. Rey leapt out of the ship and she ran as fast as she could towards a giant boulder, having a hard time in ducking the laser blows which were shot from several blasters.

When she reached her destination, she leaned onto the rock wall, trying to catch up her breath. She jumped onto the ground just in time, dodging a blaster blow and she inadvertently ended up rolling down from a little slope. She could only slow down her fell when she bumped her right foot into a log. An acute pain to her ankle made her nerve endings flare up and she let out a scream, while reaching out for her ankle; a sixth sense told her she had just broken it. How could she ever hope to climb back to where she came from, with her leg roughed up like that?

She had to move out, because a stormtrooper body was sliding down the slope and judging from the way it was falling, it surely would have collided with her.

As soon as she moved, she realized that the pain, although intense and throbbing, was bearable, so she plucked up her courage, helping herself up with her hands and with her good leg, and she climbed the hill.

Halfway though, her arms surrendered among frustration groans and sticky sweat mixed with mud. She got up and running more painfully than quickly, she reached the same boulder she was hiding when she got there in the first place.

She rolled over onto her back, she caught up her breath in a minute or so, and after a while she tried to get up, in vain: she could not set her foot down, the pain was too acute and running had only worsened her situation.

She decided that would be the place they would find her (as if she has a choice, given the circumstances). She crouched down against the boulder, she drew out from the leather bag the syringe with the yellowish liquid inside and with no further thought she injected the needle in her right thigh, pulling it out when she was sure that not even a drop was left in the vial. In less than few seconds, her head started spinning around and her strength was failing her, the sedative was producing its effect on her body. Anyway, before she could lose her consciousness, she dug a hole in the ground, burying the needle, so that no one could find it. She lay on the leaves and closed her eyes. The pain in her ankle, the perception and the control of her own body slowly faded away. She felt her heartbeats become slow and heavy, just like her breath.

Before falling soundly asleep, she heard the familiar hum of a lightsaber.

 **Author's Note:**

I hope you liked this first chapter!  
This is my story and a friend is going to traslate it for me, because I'm italian, so this story is a translation from the Italian. :D

Let me know what do you think about it :D

mytumblr:


	2. Chapter 2

**Redemption**

 _Chapter 2_

* * *

Chestnut locks tickled her scrawny cheeks, as her eyes scrutinized the green vastness of that planet. A dull sense of melancholy hit her chest and she could not identify  
that feeling, but for the lack of her beloved blue ocean. She would have liked to see the waves breaking on the island's rocky cliffs, the sea foam swallowed by the wet sand.

At any rate, in that island, sorrow and rage were more endurable. Her glance fell over the steel pavement of the Resistance base, when she sensed a familiar signature in the Force. Turning her back to the landscape, she directed her attention to the person in front of her.

"Did I interrupt something?"

"Not at all, Master." she responded, with a tepid and affable smile. Luke Skywalker came near his padawan with an unhurried slow pace and the impenetrable expression on his face aroused the girl's suspicions.

"Is there any news?" she asked, apprehensively.

"They got back a couple of minutes ago." he hesitated, sitting on one of the stools nearby. "They left in hundreds, but only twenty-one of them returned."

One team was off on to a mission at daybreak. The tragic news made their faces look grimmer than before and they stood there, keeping silent for a little while.

"You reprised your training today." Luke said, getting up from the stool to go outside on the little balcony, while she stood still exactly where she was.

She looked like ice, the expression imprinted on her face not betraying any kind of emotion.

 _It's something she has in common with her brother_ , Luke pondered, looking at her through a slit-eyed glance.

"But I screwed up, Master!" she started, giving a detailed account of her training and of how she miserably failed every and each attempt to have control over the Force. "I think... I haven't fully recovered yet." she concluded, joining him on the balcony.

"You had to face a grievous loss-"

"That's right where my rage and my distress originate, Master. I don't think I knew him so well that we can say it's a _grievous_ loss."

"Your started your training when you were barely able to talk. You cannot blame yourself for that." Luke's voice reached a soothingly and reassuringly sweet tone, so pleasant that something in the fourteen year old's chest thawed, maybe a knot, or a grip. And she let herself go.

"Strange feelings have been torturing me, lately. They're asphyxiating, they're things I've never felt so far..things that seem to burn, as if there was a fire inside me". Tears threatened to emerge, but she was somehow able to push them back, stifling the incipient whimper in her throat.

"You are young and these negative emotions are new to you, but be careful, control them, or they will lead you to the dark side."

 _Dark side_.

Those two words could make her shiver in terror, and lately, repulsion too.

"The more time passes by, the more this..this hatred – it was difficult for her to talk about that feeling in first person – grows inside me. I can feel the Force oppressing me, not reassuring me."

Her eyes were glistening and Luke could see that, even under the tenous light of the two moons . "I'm…" But she could not finish that sentence, the sob she had restrained before painfully resurfaced.

"You are afraid."

"I don't want to become like him, I don't." Shaking her head, she wiped those two fleeting tears away. Luke got close to her niece, put his hands on her shoulders and looked in her eyes, half serious and half affectionate.

"You're not like your brother."

 _Brother._

At those words, she moved one step back.

Her face turned back into the usual icy mask, but there was something different in those eyes, black like nothingness, something Luke could not immediately understand.

"I don't have a brother, not anymore." And she truly meant it.

No matter how many times she wielded her lightsaber, her desire to skewer Kylo Ren would only grow more intense, just like the sand flowing through an hourglass, slow but steady. Something was about to break in the air, but just before that could happen, she hurriedly said: "Sorry", barely a whisper. "I shouldn't have talked like that, I know you want to help."

"It is my utmost aspiration."

She looked back in his eyes and slightly grinned. She then looked away and stared back at a random point in the huge forest; only after the umpteenth moment of silence her mouth articulated a question without her even being aware of it.

"Did I look anything like him?" At the beginning Luke watched her without understanding, but a couple of seconds later he figured out whom she was talking about.

"You took his stubbornness." a little giggle was just swallowed by the night air.

"I did not mean my father." she admitted, with a bitter smile. Luke then realized he misunderstood. "I meant Ben Solo."

"Padme.."

"Please, tell me. I can't see his real face in my visions."

Luke sighed, even though that sound came out more like a snort.

Luke didn't like talking about Ben Solo.

"You are quite alike, from the physical point of view, but your face resembles more your mother's." Padme closed her eyes, hoping she would be able to visualize something. "He was full of doubts, he was afraid since the very beginning of his training."

"Then why training him?" she retorted, keeping her eyes shut. That was a tough question to answer, so he paused to mull over, searching for the right words.

"The Force was strong with your brother, but what he did not get when he turned himself to the Dark Side, was the difference between mastering it and being subjugated by it." Padme suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at his master with a wavering gaze, as she bore in mind the words she had just told him only a little earlier.

 _I can feel the Force oppressing me, not reassuring me._

"A Jedi uses the Force for the greater good. A Sith is a slave of the dark side of the Force, not its master."

"But... how is?..."

"How is that possible? Well, only who's been deeply lured by the dark side and has been able to stay in the light side can truly understand this." Thirty-years-old memories re-emerged in his mind in a quick but well-defined flow.

"You once told me that Darth Vader eventually found a way to his redemption. So, can a Sith return back to the light side?" That question woke him up from the shadows of his memory. A grin widened on his lips half hidden by his thick and bristly beard. He looked at his padawan and he said:

"Yes, they can."

"How?"

 _"_ _Now…go, my son. Leave me."_

 _"_ _No. You're coming with me. I can't leave you here. I've got to save_

 _you."_

 _"_ _You already have...Luke. You were right... you were right about me. Tell your sister…you were right."_

"...Love." he replied. "As long as someone filled with hatred is loved by even only one person, then they can find redemption." 

* * *

_"_ _I don't care how long it will take you, bring him back to me. Bring back my son."_

She woke up all of a sudden.

She looked at her wrists and at her ankles, blocked by metal binders, and she found herself laying on a cot angled so much, that it would have taken very little to straighten it up vertically.

It seemed to her she was living a familiar scene once again.  
A scene that she often lived in her worst nightmares.

Rey forced herself to watch ahead of her, even though she knew who was there for her.


	3. Chapter 3

At the beginning, he felt a slight tremble in the Force.

Very light, _but it was something, to begin with._

He called back to him some of the Stormtroopers, armed with his lightsaber, and he left the Base. In the middle of that bloody battle, the tremble became a dazzling and pure presence.

Only one person could emanate that power. And he did know, whom it belonged to. He let the Force guide him. It had drawn an imaginary and well-outlined path; oddly enough, for the first time after a very long while, the Force was not tormenting him but it was… _helping him._

 _It was unusual, that the dark side of the Force would be of help._

Waving those thoughts off, he focused on the scavenger. He found her.

He could hardly believe it, yet there she was, right under his nose, lying on the leaves, her eye-lids quivering and her body paralyzed.

And just like he had done months before, he kneeled down and lifted her up, carrying her in his arms, under the bewildered – and well concealed by the helmets- eyes of the Stormtroopers.

When he had brought her inside the Base, the Resistance ship took off with an exiguous number of men aboard. The physician droids detected a fracture in her ankle, they put it in plaster cast, and, as per General Hux's command, they locked her up in a cell.

 _What was the point in attacking the First Order with just a handful of the Resistance soldiers?_

Kylo Ren watched her over all night long, hopeful to probe her mind once again, but he found it an impossible task. Something prevented him from doing it and partly, _that something_ was inside him.

He clenched his fists and he tried over and over again, with no success at all.

There was an uproar in his head, so noisy that he did not realize about the silence all around, so deafening that he could not fully enjoy that beautiful sleeping face. He did not even flinch, when she had suddenly opened her eyes wide, her chest violently heaving, as if she had just finished a miles-long running.

Their eye-contact was not immediate and yet, when she eventually decided to look ahead with repugnance, it was almost violent. Even behind a mask, their gazes collided and the exchange of emotions and sensations between them gave them a shock that alerted all their nerve endings.

For a moment, they re-lived the scene like a flashback, and neither dared utter one word.

 _«Where am I?» she asked by pure instinct, her chest heaving quickly, in accordance with her heartbeats rhythm._

 _«You're my guest.»_

 _She was startled by that reply. There was something, in his excessively deep voice, that made her think he did not mean to hurt her._

Oh, what are you thinking about? Of course he means to hurt you.

 _«Where are the others?» she inquired, shocked by her own thoughts and by apprehension._

 _«You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends?» The voice of the black masked silhouette struck a sharpened tone, completely different from the answer of mere seconds earlier. «You'll be relieved to hear that I have no idea.»_

 _Their eye-lids got close to each other, glares emanating a mixture of contempt and hostility._

 _«You still want to kill me?» he asked, tilting his head to the side._

 _Rey mustered up all of her courage to face his arrogance. «That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask.»_ _she said, dismissively._

 _It seemed to her that Kylo Ren was sneering, behind that mask, but perhaps it was just her imagination. She was too much focused on him, who had meanwhile brought his fingers to the sides of his mask. Just when Rey realized what he was about to do, she mentally prepared herself for the worst and gulped down bitter saliva._ _He got up and…_

 _And he was just a boy, who had become a man not long ago._

 _That gaze black like nothing captured her deep brown eyes and seemed to tell her:_ «Now, do you still want to kill me?»

In the end anyway, just like last time, she spoke first, suddenly remembering General Leia's words and the mission she had entrusted her with.

«It didn't take you long to find me.» she spoke with an unstressed tone, trying to keep an emotionless expression.

Ren's mind had to re-elaborate those words and that inflection a dozen times before he could actually answer.

«That's it.» were the only words that left his mouth, as he got up standing.

That figure so tall, those shoulders so broad, all those things were nearly intimidating her.

 _I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid. I am not afraid._

 _«Don't be afraid, I feel it too.»_

Those words resounded in her mind like a distant echo.

«What was the purpose of this... _stupid attack_?» he inquired, quite unceremoniously.

«I have no idea.» she cut him off, raising her eyebrows with nonchalance.

That behavior was weird, to say the least, this surely wasn't the Rey he had met months ago, brave and full of light.  
Indeed, there was still a lot of audacity in her, but her power…it wasn't as clear as he recalled it.

«No idea…you don't say!» he provoked her, trying to wake up something inside her and in those eyes so numb.

«They told they had to leave off on a mission and once I got to know about the destination, I joined the squad.»

«Why?» he requested again, more persistently, closing the distance between them with just one long stride.

Maybe it was the sudden and unexpected closeness that finally unsettled her, shaking something inside her.

She swallowed, and, trying to disregard his heavy breath, she looked ahead of her, staring at a point whatsoever on the metallic walls.

«To escape.»

That answer befuddled him completely: _what did she mean_?

«Explain yourself, _scavenger._ »

And that nickname started a spark in her. She hesitated for just one moment, before reacting.

«To escape from the Resistance, from General Organa and from Luke Skywalker.»

«I get that much.»

The haughty irony, totally uncalled for, made her gnash her teeth.

«I don't belong to that world!» she yelled out all of a sudden, while her eyes were getting wet and he was staring at her with even more determination from behind his mask. She turned to look at him and leant forward, thus halving the few inches that still kept them apart. «I hate their orders, their goals, their faces. » she hissed, «That's why I ran away.»

Kylo Ren could not believe what he was hearing, but the best/worst part still had to come:

«During our duel on the Starkiller base, you told me I needed a teacher» and that memory flashed in his head like a lightning, totally unexpected.

 _«You need a teacher!»_

«You told me you would show me the ways of the Force.» she went on, with a bizarre look in her eyes, almost unhealthy. «I'm here to ask you if that offer's still valid.»

Bewilderment at its best.

This time he was sure he did not believe what he had heard.

The girl that was in front of him was not the same Rey he used to know, of that he was certain.

 _«I can show you the ways of the force!»_

He walked forward, turning his back to her. He looked ahead and then slightly tilted his head, so that she could only the mask profile. «Who says I'm still willing to do that?»  
She bit her tongue before answering.

«You need me more than you like to admit.»  
She knew that.  
She knew she had almost made it.  
And when she finally built this confidence, for the second time Luke Skywalker's words boomed in her head...

 _Will you really be able to be not tempted by the dark side of the force?_

He was gone, leaving her in the most complete bemusement.  
Talking to him was always a peculiar experience, but that time, he let her speechless, buried in her doubts.  
 _«Don't make my same mistake, Padme, be strong.»_ he told her, before dissolving into nowhere.

Only a couple of minutes later, she finally understood: she was supposed to participate in the mission, one way or another. That was what the ghost of Anakin Skywalker wanted her to do, or what was the whole point of that conversation?

She had to find Master Skywalker and talk to him as soon as possible.  
Convincing her mother would not be easy at all…


End file.
